Apparatuses and methods for processing bank notes present as separate deposits are known. The separate deposits are prepared for upcoming processing prior to processing by a bank note processing machine. For this purpose, in particular data or information of the deposit is detected and made available to the bank note processing machine for processing. The data can comprise information on the depositor, an account number, the quantity and value of the bank notes forming the deposit, etc. To permit uninterruptible processing by the bank note processing machine, the deposits are separated from each other by separation cards inserted between different deposits. The bank note processing machine recognizes these separation cards and thus also the beginning of a new deposit during processing.
A deposit can consist of several subunits (subdeposits). A subunit can contain for example the daily receipts of a single cash till in a store branch or a single bank counter in a bank branch. Such subunits are as a rule compiled by a clearly responsible cashier and delimited from each other for example by bands. The bands are as a rule provided with information which identifies the person responsible for compilation, e.g. by a special stamp and/or signature. The band is frequently also provided with information about the depositor, that is, the name of the chain of stores or bank.
The separation of subunits with bands is frequently used in the compilation of bank notes with a predefined number of bank notes of a certain denomination, e.g. a bundle of 100 bank notes of 100 euros each, and thus a fixed total value.
A further possibility for separating subunits consists in the use of sealed bags, e.g. safebags, or sealed envelopes, which are likewise provided with information about the depositor and the person responsible for compilation.
To simplify further processing, the subunits of a chain of stores or bank are packed into a deposit in a transport container which is transferred to a money processing center with a delivery document on the value of the deposit. The money processing center checks whether the deposit contains the value stated on the delivery document and causes a corresponding credit entry in the depositor's account. If a deviation is ascertained or a forged bank note recognized in this check, however, the person responsible for compiling the subunit must be determined, so that he can possibly be held liable for the deviation or questioned as a witness for the acceptance of a forgery. This makes it necessary to keep all information about a subunit until the positive completion of the check and not to mix the associated bank notes with other bank notes until their value is clearly ascertained and brought to account. The separation and identification of the subunits can likewise be effected here with separation cards inserted between different subunits.
To improve the continuity of processing of deposits or the bank notes forming the deposits, it has also become known e.g. from DE 195 12 505 A1 to use containers, so-called carriers, in which the bank notes of the different deposits as well as the separation cards separating the deposits are inserted to be supplied to the bank note processing machine. In this case the carriers are brought by a transport device, one after the other, to the area of a singler of the bank note processing machine and taken by the singler singly out of the carrier for processing in the bank note processing machine.
However, it has turned out in the processing of bank notes by known apparatuses and methods for processing bank notes present as separate deposits that correct separation and integrity of the different deposits is no longer guaranteed using separation cards if malfunctions occur in the bank note processing machine. This results from the fact that the order of bank notes in the bank note processing machine can be changed if for example a jam of bank notes occurs during their transport through the bank note processing machine. In this case it repeatedly happens that bank notes of different deposits are mixed, i.e. a bank note belonging to the deposit after a separation card is positioned by the jam before the separation card and thus wrongly allocated to the deposit before the separation card. An exact separation of the deposits is in this case hardly possible, or can only be had with great time expenditure.